Dual citizenship in Kenya: a case for its provision under Kenyan law.

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Abstract

In Kenya, whether to make provision for dual citizenship in our Kenyan Constitution or
not has been the subject of much debate. This was seen more clearly in the deliberations
of the delegates involved in the process of reviewing the Constitution of Kenya between
2003 and 2004. Delegates were divided into two camps. There were those for and that are
against its provision in the New Constitution. It is worth noting, that Kenya has been
reviewing its current Constitution for the last two years. Allowing dual citizenship has
been one of these contested issues hence the debate.
The Kenyan government has frowned upon Kenyans acquiring other citizenships,
because in some way or another this has shown disloyalty to the Kenyan citizenship.
Kenyan citizens who do this have been perceived to be unpatriotic to their country.
However, this is not the case.
Our Kenyan citizenship laws have been discriminatory to women in that Kenyan women
living abroad cannot as the laws stand confer citizenship to their children born abroad.
Their male counterparts on the other hand can confer automatic Kenyan citizenship to
their children born in the same circumstances. Further, women who are Kenyan citizens
who get married to non Kenyans automatically lose their Kenyan citizenship to embrace
that of their husband since Kenya does not allow dual citizenship. These women can
neither confer Kenyan citizenship to their foreign husbands nor, their children. To other
Kenyan citizens who seek to acquire foreign citizenship by naturalization, they should
not be denied their rights as Kenyan citizens due to the fact that they have embraced
foreign citizenships.
Our